The Wrathbringer Chronicles: Ascension
by Mr Mythos
Summary: A new evil is rising in the west. Not of the evil we know, such as the Enclave, who are of moral evil, but of something different, of a forced evil, where one is made to do what they must to survive. The Wrathbringer cometh.


**Chapter One: Humbled Beginnings**

**Jack**  
Have you seen the city of New Reno? It's not beautiful, not quaint or a shining beacon that mankind always survives. In fact it's quite the opposite; it's filthy, ridden with the taint of man's worst temptations, a representation of how truly low humanity can sink, when ravaged by war, disease and almost genocide, man still insists on indulging in the most debasing of thrills; sex, drugs and shooting at each other. New Reno is a breeding place for such things. It is a city without rules. When the world as we know it was obliterated by nuclear war, New Reno was one of the few cities that became inhabited again. It was a city without order, where a man could do whatever he wanted and no one would tell him what he could and couldn't do. Then the families came; Mordino, Salvatore, Wright and Bishop, the four heads of the families that would take New Reno by the balls and turn it into a business. You will not find a greater hive of scum and villainy on the planet. Now under the rule of the descendants of the original family heads in the year 2269, New Reno is still alive and kicking.

And somebody's been murdered.

He blinked.  
Jack had known death as long as he could remember—in the wastes you just got used to the idea of death. That someone could be there one day and the next be gone. He had come to terms with those around him dying, be they human or ghoul or even super mutant in some cases.  
So why did this corpse unnerve him so?  
Maury Wernstein, aged 87, religious practitioner of the Jewish faith. Shot dead at 2:03 AM on October the 21st 2269. Nothing strange about that . . . except . . . why would someone want to kill Maury? He had been under protection from all four families—he was banker for all the illegal funds for each of the four families, kept all their caps (coins as currency had long since been abandoned as they were now too far and between) in check. He even had a big ledger in which he had noted down all their ever-increasing investments. Now here he lay with seven bullets in his chest on a road in East Reno, his blood slowly seeping out onto the tarmac.

"Hey, uh, Mr Winchester, sir?" The voice came from behind Jack where he knelt, examining the body and occasionally poking at a device.  
"Yes, Danny?" he replied, not pausing in his work.  
"Uh, there's some people comin' up the road, sir. . .and call me Jules, sir."  
Jack frowned.  
"Daniel was the name you were born with. Jules was your father's name—or so he told everyone." It brought Danny a pang of sadness to think about his old dad; he had been the old 'greeter' for New Reno back in the day. The old coot had basically cheated tourists and travellers out of their hard-earned caps before they had even gotten to the end of the first street by selling them useless information, directions or a hand-drawn guide that was totally inaccurate. The old guy had taught Danny all he knew in the ways of swindling and when the old fella had died of a stroke four years afore, Danny had wept like a kid (even though he was still technically a kid) when they had buried his old man out in the Wastes. Though he had made sure to swindle the only attendees out of a couple of caps in a little goodbye to his poppa.

"Anyway, Danny, just . . . handle the crowds. I'll only need another couple of minutes. . ." Jack replied politely, making sure to address the boy. He thought very highly of Danny and thought maybe the boy wouldn't end up going down the same path his father had.  
"Okay, Mr Winchester. . ." Danny nodded loyally and turned, ready to start telling the approaching crowds to 'take their business elsewhere' (perhaps he did not intend to put it so eloquently) when he remembered something "oh, well. . .actually, y'know, you didn't pay me to help crowd control. . ." he carried on in a wheedling voice "it's awfully cold out tonight. . ."  
"Yes yes. . .of course, Danny," the man hunched over the corpse told him hurriedly "just give me a few more minutes. . ."  
The boy nodded and slunk off to start clearing away the people who were coming over to investigate—despite the fact it was past three o'clock in the morning, people were still up and about, drinking, fighting, gambling. . .if you listened carefully, you could hear the occasional _ratta-tat-tat _of machine gun fire somewhere in the distance.

_Reno never sleeps. . ._ Jack thought to himself, examining the now-pale complexion of the body's skin. Maury had a long black beard and a prominent nose. His eyes had once been a bright striking green, but now were dull and empty. The skin had been rosy, warm, but had been drained of its colour and warmth by the cold embrace of death—and bullets. Maury was wearing his expensive overcoat and waistcoat combo and one of those quaint little caps Jewish people wear with his smart black shoes (shined to perfection, Jack noted) and grey trousers, a little short around the ankles so you could see his socks. Nothing wrong with this picture class. . .but ah, if we look a little closer we can see. . .seven dark holes in the expensive waistcoat, blood long ago finished seeping out into Maury's clothes, staining them a deep maroon. Jack removed his hat (brown and slick—like something a gangster might wear to most, a trilby to people of worldly knowledge like Jack) and scratched the short, messy straw-coloured hair that covered his head with one hand, something he always did when he was confused or puzzled. It just didn't add up; anyone who killed Maury was dog food within twenty four hours—murdered by one of the families. The guy knew all their little secrets, which made him so valuable yet dangerous. But _why_?  
The banker had been a nice enough guy—Jack and he had had tea in the past, even exchanged business (strictly legal, if such a thing exists anymore) and it didn't seem like he had any enemies—everyone was too afraid to be his enemy.

Jack frowned, standing up. He put his hat back on and looked at the device on his wrist. It was a Pip-Boy, but was smaller and lighter than the cumbersome 2000 or 3000 models. It was known as the Lil' Pip 3000, and functioned much like a regular Pip-Boy, only smaller and lighter. It looked quite peculiar, with its little double-screen. The only disadvantaging features of the Lil' Pip 3000 was it was far more fragile than the other models and used integrated circuitry rather than vacuum tubes to achieve its small size and specifically _this _one was how sadistic it was. It liked to turn off at random moments, misplace massive amounts of data and pick up a radio signal from somewhere in Mexico. He had taken it apart more times than he could count (well, not true since Jack is one of those snobbishly educated members of the wasteland who can count into four digits) and yet the still thing played up with him. Jack had replaced the capacitors, changed the circuitry, changed the light bulb that poked out obnoxiously multiple times and had even replaced the wrist strap in a wild hope that this was somehow the problem, but the thing still went blank in the middle of downloading the observational data of a Gecko herd, still lost all his notes on recycling electricity and still played 'La Danza del Sol Feliz" when he was trying to pick up distress signals. But it was the best Jack could find and regardless of how much he hated the satanic device it certainly helped a lot.  
Currently he was entering the analysis of Maury's death. He was just entering time of death when-  
"You can tell what time he died just by _looking_ at the guy?" Danny's voice came from just behind his shoulder, making Jack jump and whip around, looking the boy up and down. He hadn't even heard him come over.  
"I'm sorry—what?"  
"What time the old sucker kicked the bucket—I saw you typing it in," he typed on an invisible keyboard, to mimic Jack's fingers over the Lil' Pip's minute keypad. A look of realization passed over the man's face and he frowned at Danny's disrespectful nature towards the dead.  
"Oh, right. No, I just looked at his watch. . ." Jack explained, fingers still poised over the keypad, ready to type in the numbers, the little green line prompting him impatiently, flashing on and off.  
"It stopped _right_ when he died?"  
"It smashed," Jack informed him, casting a look over at the dead body with pity in his eyes "right when he hit the pavement. . ."  
"Wow, that's a bit of a. . .oh, wossname. . ."  
"Cliché?" Jack asked, eyes raised but face pointed back at the screen.  
"Yeah, a cleetshay," Danny said, grinning and nodding proudly.

There was a silence as Jack typed in the time and saved the note to the memory, closing the lid of his Pip-Boy with a small _click_ and staring ponderously at the night sky, naming each constellation in his head as his eyes rolled over them, deep in thought. He suddenly looked down at Danny, his eyes narrowed slightly in thought, one arm propped on the other, cupping his hand around his chin and feeling the scraggly goatee that grew on his curved, calm chin. He raised a hand and pushed his thin, black glasses further up his nose with his index finger firmly before placing the hand back in its place.  
"But _why_ would someone want to kill Maury, Danny?" he asked, almost as if he didn't expect an answer at all and was talking to himself. He didn't even seem to be looking at Danny, more _through_ him, as if he was made of glass.

Danny looked at Jack, thinking about him. He had been around a long while, since before dad had died. He'd been younger then, more jumpy and optimistic. Dad had helped him around New Reno, showed him the ropes (for a price of course) and well . . . then there had been that business with the boxer. Dad had owed a boxer some money after he had promised to pay the guy if he went down on purpose. Dad hadn't payed up and the guy had been out for blood. Jack had saved dad by the skin of his teeth and dad had always been in his debt ever since. Now dad was gone, Mr Winchester had always looked out for Danny when he'd been in town, made sure to teach him wrong from right (and it is safe to say Mr Winchester had very different ideals of wrong from right to dad) and keep him out of too much trouble. He was a kind guy, always looking out to do the right thing. Danny didn't know why. In his opinion, you should look out for yourself and no one else. He was a little weird though, when you boiled down to it. He liked to play with machines and computers—take them apart and then put them back together again, find out what made them tick. He was also a very well-spoken individual, often running rings around people with his seemingly endless vocabulary of words that were longer than seven letters. That was how he had saved dad from that boxer, not by fighting, but with _words_. That was what made him so peculiar, his way with words . . . and he always travelled alone. Well, not always. In the time before dad had died, Jack had turned up with all sorts: ghouls, super mutants, humans . . .even a robot once. But now he always seemed alone. Before he had been a grinning, humorous philanthropist (Danny had been spending too much time near him; words like philanthropist were normally like gibberish to him) who spoke his opinion loudly. Now he was a quiet, contemplative guardian who often said less than he thought. There were flashes of that funny, kind man at times, but he seemed . . . lost. Danny would even go so far as to say broken. Sometimes Danny wondered what it was that had made him so. . .different, so distant and quiet. But he couldn't think hard enough to imagine what it could be.  
"Danny?" His name seemed warbled and slowed, as if someone were talking into a microphone underwater.  
"Huhn?" Danny replied unresponsively, his train of thought breaking.  
"I was just wondering why anyone would want to kill Maury. . ."  
Danny thought hard. Why _would_ anyone want to kill ol' Maury? He never hurt anybody and he kept his business to himself. Sure, you might want to get at the guy's book of numbers, but only someone as smart as Mr Winchester could understand all those numbers and Danny knew he hadn't shot Maury because they had both been passing when they had heard the gunshots. Mr Winchester had rushed off towards it and Danny had followed. When they got their Maury was already dead. No one had come over because, well, in New Reno, gunshots were like birdsong.

"I guess they could want to get at his book of numbers. . ." Danny voiced slowly, waiting and somewhat dreading the impending deconstruction of his answer and its dismissal.  
"His book of accounts?" Jack pondered this, stroking his scraggly goatee and considering it. Danny's heart almost fluttered at the possibility he might have done something useful "a good solution to our conundrum, Danny, but you'd have to be nuts to try to steal from all four of the families at the same time. . .unless you wanted to place a ransom or something. . .it would be good to keep in mind. Well done," he gave the praise absently, not like he used to with that crooked grin and the twinkle in his eye. Danny sighed. He looked at Mr Winchester, in his suave hat and his framed glasses, wearing that nice, clean brown suit with the little red tie, like Mr Winchester thought he was a businessman or something. The face was pale and white, as if he didn't get out much. Jack's eyes were a bright shade of green, radiating intelligence and inquiry, but they were also hard, as if he had seen far more than he could ever want. His nose was pointed but not curved or hooked, topping the mouth and chin, both surrounded by curling, rakish hairs that felt like wiring to touch. His frame was small but somehow sturdy, adding to the whole upright, smart and cleanliness of his whole appearance. The only things out of place in the picture were the shoes: they were a smart, old pair of sneakers, the laces tied firmly. A company name had once adorned the side of the shoes, but had long since faded away to obscurity. You could still make out a scratched 'N' though.  
Jack stood in silence for a while, looking down at the body of the dead Jew, his thoughts somewhere far beyond Danny, who looked on with the curious eyes of a child who is seeing something magical and mysterious happen.

Suddenly, Jack let his arms down and nodded to himself. He started to walk off down the street at a modest pace. It took a few moments for Danny to catch up, so rapt was he in watching the man think he hardly notice him move. He turned and called after him: "Mr Winchester—where are you going?"  
"I'm going to find some answers, Danny," Jack said back, his voice somehow carrying back to Danny. He turned and put his hands in his pockets, walking backwards so he could see the boy more clearly "promise me you'll tell someone Maury's dead, won't you?"  
"I will, sir!" Danny replied loyally, nodding his head like a bumbling assistant might in an adventuring novel "will I see you anytime soon?"  
"Oh, I'll be around, Danny," Jack assured him, sounding somewhat distant and ominous, despite they were only half the street away "just, stay out of trouble. I'll be around New Reno for the next few days, just look out for yourself. . ." he was getting further away.  
"I will, sir!"  
"And promise me you'll tell someone?"  
"I promise!"

And then he was gone, vanished into an alleyway like a shadow, sliding into the night air like a cat. That was another thing Mr Winchester was good at, Danny thought, appearing and disappearing or getting into places you weren't supposed to get into. He was a peculiar man, Mr Winchester. It was like there was so much wrapped up inside him he couldn't be a normal person. He had to be quiet and thoughtful, or else the things inside might get out. Danny looked up the street, where the sun was slowly rising at four o'clock in the morning, casting a very faint blue light over the world, thinking about his dad again. He looked at Maury the dead banker and thought about why he had to die. He was an old man and he would have died of old age anyway . . . no, the poor fella had gotten shot.  
"It's a crummy ol' world. . ." Danny said savagely to no one in particular, kicking a deflated old tire and stubbing his toe. He looked up at the point where Mr Winchester had disappeared and was struck by a sudden realization.

He'd forgotten to ask for his pay.


End file.
